Education and Alastor

[muninnnothuginn]

Someone brought up a fascinating question on Bluesky and I'd love to pull it apart where I've got more room to write!

 

The question was how did Alastor become so educated in a time and place where someone of his race would have had very limited opportunities. My counterpoint is that I do not believe Alastor has demonstrated that he had a higher education and, further, I would argue he didn't need it to accomplish his goals.

 

What is Alastor? He is a talented performer and a clever opportunist with keen observational skills.

 

There is a difference between intelligent and formally educated. Per the series, we have not seen anything that implies higher learning - Alastor discusses only the history he would have personally observed or have heard of during his lifetime. His job would not have required advanced maths, advanced literature or knowledge of philosophy, extensive knowledge of world history and global politics, or the sciences. The few examples of his writing we see are all in print, not the cursive script a more educated man would use, and the word choices are simple and make use of slang - which would have been vulgar among the upper class and educated elite but would have been perfect for a radio host who needs to be personable and engaging to a wider audience. Now, in terms of slang, I think an case could be made that he was addressing people he was either comfortable/relaxed with or who he held a low opinion of, but I don't feel the penmanship and the very simple word choices can be overlooked. Not only is intelligent not the same as educated, but reading, writing, and speaking in a specific language are all separate skills. That's why these are all different categories when testing someone for fluency in a second language. His English reading skills (recognition) may have been or continue to be well above his English writing skills (recall) - making his highest level of fluency only in spoken English. ( As an aside, it would be wonderful to discuss Alastor being bilingual and the discrimination against speaking certain languages) 

 

Now, that's a lot of what I don't think he has. Let's look at all Alastor does have - and in spades, no less. Strong social skills on at least a superficial level. I believe this is where both keen observation and unfortunate necessity collided. He knows how to perform. He knows how to sell a constructed persona and sell it effectively. Anyone who has sung in a choir can tell you that, if necessary, you can get through a song you don't know the words or even the tune for by singing the tiniest bit behind the rest. You can blend in or, in less kind words, you can fake your way through anything as long as you know how to match pitch and stay outwardly calm. I believe that's what Alastor did. I can well imagine him listening to the radio and practicing in secret until he could not only mimic the accent perfectly but also knew all the current topics of interest to discuss. The next step would be to observe the behaviors of various social classes and, frankly, he would have already been painfully aware of many distinctions and boundaries. His life would have depended on knowing precisely those things and no school would have taught him more than real life experience. I suspect Alastor learned first how to blend in from a distance. Then, because he is an ambitious person, he began taking steps to stand out and leaned more heavily on the extremely good improvisation skills we know he has. It's much like the choir example - minute adjustments knowing that notes tend to rise or fall in certain patterns, ready to change pitch or pace in a second at the slightest hint that the music is shifting. He learned how to speak, how to walk, how to position himself in the right crowds and say the right things and be noticed in the right ways. I am sure he could talk circles around people, spending hours saying nothing in particular and giving away nothing, because his performance covered most of the gaps and his audience assumed enough to fill in the rest to their own satisfaction. Someone brings up an event or a person or thing he doesn't know anything about? He reads the room. Gauges how the people around him react to that topic. Maybe he makes a general statement based on what he can reasonably guess at. Maybe he makes an amusing anecdote that seems tangentially related. Either way, he controls the conversation and steers it in a different direction without people understanding that's what he's done. He gets invited to an elaborate dinner and watches like a hawk, a half second behind until he's honed a rougher idea of etiquette into perfection and then takes that new knowledge with him to the next higher level. He climbs using each rung of the ladder to teach him how to grasp the next one up. He makes an art form of adapting. Again, this is him succeeding but not through formal education.

 

Could an argument be made that he was self-educated later in life when he had the means?Absolutely! In terms of personality, I think self-education would be the only option his pride would allow for after he became well known and successful. Anything else would mean openly admitting to what would feel like an inadequacy or vulnerability and could very well have negatively impacted his reputation if it became known.

 

I'd like to wrap this up by pointing to one of the most famously clever fictional characters - Sherlock Holmes. While he did have a formal education, canonically he was utterly ignorant in almost every area that would not help him with solving cases and plainly stated he endeavored to forget anything irrelevant to his fixation because it would only clutter up his mind. A character can have very specialized interests and/or skills that make them excel at their chosen pursuits but that doesn't indicate they are well rounded educationally.

 

But what are your opinions? Please feel free to share; I love a good debate and this can go in so many directions!

(And please excuse any mistakes, my laptop is toast and I'm using a cellphone to type) 

Comments

[violet_strangefire]

Oooh! Ooooh!

I'll write more later when I'm not so sleepy (and don't have work tomorrow 😅) but I really like all your ideas here! I also agree that Alastor's "education" probably derives more from his observational and analytical skills than formal education; good point about his writing, I never thought of it that way before! While he could be deliberately writing in an offputting way (because he does love throwing people off whenever he can) I do think that writing is probably the least important skill to him, behind reading and most importantly, speech and sound.

Re: schooling, if he did have any formal schooling, I think he probably only completed high school, at best, and quite possibly only up to grade 8, especially if he wasn't born in New Orleans and came from a more rural area originally. He could very easily have been educated in a one-room schoolhouse, then either taught at home by his mother or self-taught for the rest. Either way, he probably faked his way through any gaps in his education, though note that both his chosen profession and his main hobby/interests are in creative fields where he wouldn't have needed an extensive formal education.